This web site supports Dr. Russell Sabella's work on educating children, parents, educators and other stake holders about the responsible use of technology. Included in these pages you will find helpful resources, lesson plans, links, and more.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Interested in finding out more about these topics? Here’s how—download version 7.0, the newest version of the NetSmartz Tweens, Teens, and Parent/Community presentations at www.NetSmartz.org/Presentations.

These presentations are revamped and better than ever! Check out our:

Eye-catching graphics and images to aid comprehension

Tween and Teen presentations timed for their attention span

Long and short versions of the Parent/Community presentation to fit any schedule

Coverage of the latest tech trends

More conversational speaker notes

Increased audience engagement

Augmented presenter’s notes, including new FAQs and glossary

Once you’ve downloaded the presentations, share your feedback. Help us make even more improvements by filling out the survey you’ll receive with the links to the presentations.

Having troubles downloading the presentations? Send me an e-mail (lnathan@ncmec.org) with your complete address and I’ll send you a copy of the presentations on CD.

Monday, June 15, 2009

June is National Internet Safety Month. The purpose of this observance is to raise awareness of the dangers to which children may be exposed on the Internet and ways in which they can be protected from them.

Online safety is everyone's responsibility. Parents need to be vigilant about their children's use of the computer and cell phone. Teachers need to promote responsible Internet usage by students. Internet safety organizations need to help youth develop the decision-making skills needed to use the Web safely. Only through such coordinated efforts can we maximize the benefits of the Internet, while minimizing its dangers.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) supports a number of programs and activities designed to raise awareness about the importance of online safety and to help protect children and youth from online exploitation and victimization.

Resources:

To obtain further information about OJJDP supported initiatives to promote Internet safety, visit:

Friday, June 12, 2009

A new movement is afoot, writes Dr. PerriKlass in The New York Times, to give bullies and their victims long-deserved attention, of the kind they have received in Europe. Americans are moving past the idea that bullying is a normal part of childhood, and are recognizing it as a long-term risk -- in the case of victims, for suicidal thoughts and depression; for perpetrators, reduced likelihood of finishing school or holding down a job. In its policy statement on preventing youth violence, the American Academy of Pediatrics will include a new section on bullying. This will recommend that schools adopt a prevention model developed by Professor Dan Olweus of Norway, which focuses attention on the largest group of children, bystanders. "Olweus's genius," lead author Dr. Robert Sege said, "is that he manages to turn the school situation around so the other kids realize that the bully is someone who has a problem managing his or her behavior, and the victim is someone they can protect." Through class discussions, parent meetings, and consistent responses to every incident, a school broadcasts that bullying is not tolerated. A pediatrician can be a first line of defense in this process, notifying schools when he detects or is told of bullying by his patients. Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/health/09klas.html

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- If you like to search for "music lyrics" or "free" things, you are engaging in risky cyber behavior. And "free music downloads" puts 20 percent of Web surfers in harm's way of malicious software, known as "malware."

A new research report by U.S.-based antivirus software company McAfee has identified the most dangerous Internet search words that place users on pages with a higher likelihood of cyber attacks.

"Just in the past year, we've seen a pretty dramatic shift in what we call malware," David DeWalt, president and CEO of McAfee, told Richard Quest for CNN International's "Quest Means Business." Watch Quest interview with McAfee boss »

"It went from a hacker in a basement, to organized cybercrime to now, literally, terrorism and other forms of organized geopolitical attacks," he said.

Categories that had the highest risk of run-ins with malware: screen savers, free games, work from home, Olympics, videos, celebrities, music and news.

"We can have massive outages with a hacker in the basement. We saw that recently with the 'Twitter worm,' a 17-year-old in his basement basically perpetrated tens of millions of (computer) outages. Or, we can see an organized attack bringing down infrastructure," DeWalt said.

"We've been way behind, that's true for the entire world, the global infrastructure of the Internet has grown dramatically -- 50 percent of the world's PCs are unprotected," DeWalt said.

Despite the increased risk, DeWalt doesn't believe there will be a "cyber Armageddon" causing widespread destruction of computers and Internet infrastructure.

"Last week, you saw President Obama in the United States talk about a major cyber-security initiative sponsored by the government, other governments are sponsoring this as well," DeWalt said. "I think we're learning this can happen, and if we get ahead of it, we can prevent it."

Monday, June 8, 2009

Recently, the iKeepSafe Coalition partnered with Woogi World, an educational virtual world for kids that combines standards-based learning with a format and virtual platform that resonates with today’s children. The program offers K-6 standards-based curricula presented in a Club format for individual subjects: Reading, English Language Learning, Math, Science, Music, Health and Fitness, and Global Citizenship for classroom/summer school/after-school programs. Woogi World is already used in over 57,000 schools with a reach of 6 million students.